Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 19:22:11 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: "Jay P Hailey" Title: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile Author: Jay P Hailey (JayPHailey@hotmail.com) Series: MISC - TNG OCs Codes: None Part: 49/342(?) Rating:[PG] Archive: Fine with me, just tell me where. Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Star Trek. I claim Original Characters and Situations for me. Webpage HTTP://jayphailey.8m.com ZTA-1: Episode 49 by Jay P. Hailey And Dennnis Washburn I walked into Shuttle Bay Two. Tillean was there. She was barefoot. I noticed that her uniform was somewhat disheveled, too. I figured I was lucky that she hadn't come down to the Shuttle bay in her night gown. If she wore one. "Report." "Everything is in the same shape as when we left it, sir. The guards monitoring said that they haven't noticed any changes." "I'm fine. Captain." The Probe chimed in. I turned to focus my attention on Tillean. "Prepare to jettison the probe. We're leaving the system." "But," Tillean was horrified. I was running out just as she was getting really involved in the whole puzzle. Looking in my face she realized that I was serious and somewhat nervous. She accepted my order. "You're going to abandon me here?" The Probe asked. I looked at it for a moment. It was an alien machine. A dangerous and unpredictable Artificial Intelligence that could be programmed to perfectly mimic appealing human emotions while awaiting the perfect chance to strike. Nevertheless, I couldn't ignore the hurt tone in its output. "You belong here, with ZTA-1." I said. "That's your home now." "But I'm a Federation probe, Sir!" "No, you were a Federation probe. Now you're... something else. Maybe you can help it find some life forms." The probe sounded heartbroken. "I'm sorry. I was built to explore space with a Federation starship. I was really hoping that you would take me along, when you left." "Why can't you explore space with ZTA-1?" "It's not the same. It doesn't think of me as a tool to use or a thing with a function. I saw it in its mind when it was transforming me. I'm not real to ZTA-1. It will probably just ignore me." I rolled my eyes. It was getting harder to ignore the pleading in the probe's voice. "Look at it from my position. How do I know that you don't pose a danger to the Harrier?" "If I were a photon torpedo, I would have detonated by now. Other than that I can't say. But I'll do anything to prove that I'm not dangerous. I'm not fueled anymore. I can't really explode. Please let me stay!" "Captain, I can rig a service cradle on the outer hull. He can ride along on the outside." Tillean suggested. "Please?" The probe begged "All I want to do is ride along and explore things with you." Shooting a dirty look at Tillean I said "All right. On one condition. You have to try to make sure that we know everything that's going on inside your new brain. If we know this and can confirm it independently, then we know if you're a danger." "Okay!" The probe happily said "Aye, Sir!" Tillean was nearly as happy. "Captain to the Bridge!" Li'ira called over the intercom. -*- "The planet has changed course to intercept us." Spaat said. I boggled. "What?" He said again, slowly and precisely. "The planet ZTA-1 has changed course to intercept us." I got a serious case of the willies. "Time until intercept?" "Thirty-seven years, ten months, nine days, six hours, twenty-three minutes and approximately ten seconds, assuming that we don't change course before then." My willies died down a little bit. "Really?" "I estimate that the power expressed is somewhere in the seventh magnitude, on the standard Vulcan scale of planetary energy." Spaat said. My willies returned. In the twenty-fourth century, the planet Earth had stayed firmly in the fifth magnitude of energy generation. It was the scale for rating an entire civilization. ZTA-1 had just used as much energy as one hundred Earths. "Can you read any signs of weapons or tractor beams?" I asked. With the power levels available to ZTA-1 it could push a phaser beam a billion miles and still have it be powerful enough to destroy the Harrier. "No, Captain. It is possible that our sensors are not capable of detecting any." "Yellow alert. Take us to full impulse." The Harrier's speed increased. More officers came to the bridge in response to the yellow alert. Stephanie Anderson took her position. So did Harksain Varupuchu. Spaat studied the sensor data closely and ran the calculations through the navigational computers. "The Planet has once again changed course to intercept. Estimated time of intercept, one hundred and eighty years." "Change course to zero mark 180 relative bearing." I ordered the Harrier's nose pointed out of the plane of the ecliptic. It would take much more energy to shift ZTA's course away from the ecliptic of its primary. The Harrier sped away from the Planet. Our range was really opening up, now, nearing a million kilometers. "Any changes in the Planet's heading?" "None, Captain." The Harrier lurched. It was a bad one. It wasn't as though the Harrier tilted, it was as though she suddenly shifted several inches to the side. I picked myself up off the deck and said "Red alert! Report please." Stephanie Anderson picked herself up and got to her station. She began reading off damage reports. "Main power is out. Engineering reports that the warp power will be restored in five minutes. Auxiliary power is operational at eighty-five percent. Photon Torpedoes are off-line. Phasers are available." Varupuchu reported "We are in a powerful and localized gravity field. It is too powerful for our impulse engines to break out of." "The Planet has us?" "I can not confirm that. I can not determine an origin for the gravity waves." I knew that using our warp drives in the gravity field would be quite risky. Starships don't engage their engines near planets because the gravity of the planet can be slightly different from one warp engine nacelle to the next. It would take sensitive equipment to measure the difference. Magnify that difference by warp speeds and the nacelles can be miles apart in the blink of an eye. This is not a healthy experience. "Are we stationary or moving, relative to ZTA-1?" Spaat checked. "We are moving back to ZTA-1 at a constant rate." "Li'ira, you have the con." I said. She accepted command of the bridge and I ran down to Shuttle Bay Two. As I ran in, the reason that Tillean had not reported to the bridge became clear. The jolt that had thrown me out of my seat had also thrown scientific equipment all over the shuttle bay. Tillean and her crew were working with a medical team to free a trapped crewman. He was pinned underneath a temporary console. The Probe had fallen off of its service cradle and was lying at an angle against the deck and the cradle. "Probe A7-TU-BL, report." "I fell down. With no fuel I can't correct my attitude." The Probe sounded resigned "Chief Petty Officer Krakowski was pinned under the system analysis module and has been injured. I hope he'll be repairable." "That jolt was ZTA-1 capturing us. Do you know what it wants?" "Oh, yes, Captain. More than anything else it wants to nurture life forms on its surface. You're just the first examples that have happened along." "It wants sentient life forms?" I had a vision of myself and my descendants as the hostages of a mad planet. "No Captain. Any life forms." "Then why doesn't it build them? The work it did on you was easily complex enough to allow building life forms." "I am not a true life form, according to ZTA-1. Although my mental processes are easily more complicated than many life forms, ZTA-1 feels that a natural life form is superior to an artificial one. It's ironic. I can't imagine the difference between molecules assembled deliberately or by accident, but to ZTA-1 that makes all the difference." "Yeah," I grumbled "Ironic. Could we give ZTA-1 simple life forms and fulfill its needs?" "I suppose so." I turned to the crowd that was concentrated around CPO Krakowski. "Tillean, please go down to the Arboretum and grab some plants. Grab examples that will fit in the Probe's payload bay and bring them back here." Tillean looked at me. She was shocked "Captain, Krakowski's pinned." She waved at him. "All due respect Lieutenant, did you hear what the Captain said?" Krakowski grated from under the console. We looked at him. "Being pinned is painful and boring, Sirs. I heard every word." "Besides Lieutenant, there are enough people here to pull him out without us interfering. Please go now. We're in a little trouble, here." I added. Dubiously, Tillean left to carry out my instructions. I picked several science and engineering people who were standing around being concerned about Krakowski. "You, you and you, come help with the Probe." It had been a while since I was on a probe crew but I remembered the basics. We hefted him back onto his cradle and fueled him up. "Ah! That feels nice!" He said. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.639 / Virus Database: 408 - Release Date: 3/22/2004 -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Awards Tech Support http://www.trekiverse.us/ASCAwards/commenting/ No Tribbles were harmed in the running of these Awards ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek .creative or directly to the author. Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! 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